This invention relates generally to artificial blood vessel devices and more particularly to improvements in and relating to vascular prostheses including intraluminal grafts for use in surgical operations for treating dissecting aortic aneurysm and the like.
The operation of surgical excision of dissecting aortic aneurysm and replacement with a vascular prosthesis or intraluminal graft is being widely practiced as a standard method of operation. However, the results of this operation cannot by any means be said to be satisfactory. A major reason for this resides in the difficulty of anastomosis or union of the fragile aorta which has dissected and become double walled and a vascular prosthetic device. Hemorrhage from the anastomosed parts prolongs the operative time and may give rise to the death of the patient in many cases.
In view of this circumstance, as a method of carrying out surgical therapy of the instant disease condition safely and, moreover, in a short time, a procedure which comprises inserting an intraluminal graft with a tube of hard Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) or stainless steel stitched to each of its two ends intraluminally into the dissecting aorta and tightening the aortic wall around the tubes from outside of the aorta with tapes thereby to fix the aortic wall to the tubes has recently come into practice. In the practice of this method, however, certain difficulties as described below are encountered.
1. In the case where an intraluminal graft with appended tubes of Teflon or stainless steel is ligated with tape or the like at the time of vascular operation as described above, necrosis (gangrene) tends to occur in the blood vessel at the ligated parts because the tubes of Teflon or stainless steel are hard, and when gangrene occurs, there is the risk of rupture of the gangrenous part, which could lead to death. PA1 2. Since the tube parts of a vascular prosthesis with Teflon or stainless-steel tubes at its ends are hard and therefore cannot be compressed, the blood vessel at its part to be operated on must be extensively incised to the length of that artificial graft at the time of the vascular operation. Extensive incision of the blood vessel wall of an aneurism which is in a fragile state entails a great risk and is accompanied by difficulties such as a proportionately large quantity of hemorrhage.